1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to a printing control program, a printing control system, and a printing control method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a printing system used in corporate offices, a number of documents are output by various kinds of application programs using various templates. In such a printing system, the various templates are provided for various services in each of departments regarding salary, accounting, credit depositing, and personnel affairs.
Generally, the above-described printing system is structured in such a manner that a printer and a plurality of processing apparatus for executing the various kinds of application programs are connected each other by an interface such as a computer network.
In a printing system that uses templates, printing is accomplished by using a plurality of templates in an office automation system such as a word processor. In the printing, it is required to print a large volume of documents in a significantly high speed in order to guarantee a completion of the required printing by every monthly or weekly due term.
Conventionally, an overlay printing method is known as a method for printing a high volume of documents in a high speed (see JP-A-2001-130078, specifically FIG. 1 thereof). In the overlay printing method, print data is firstly transmitted from a processing system in which a print request is issued to a printing apparatus. Then, the printing apparatus carries out a command analysis and a drawing process operation of the print data, and then, processed results are converted into raster (bit map) data which can be handled by a printing mechanism unit.
In a printing process operation after the raster converting operation, such a data which is transmitted to the printing apparatus is preliminarily subdivided into a fixed portion thereof and a variable portion thereof, and then the fixed portion is registered as overlay information on the side of the printing apparatus in the processing system in which the print request is issued.
In the case that the above-described overlay printing method is employed, the overlay information which has been previously transmitted/registered to the printing apparatus is converted into such a raster data which may be readily processed in the printing apparatus, and thereafter, the raster data is stored in the storage apparatus in which provided for an overlay printing. While only the print data of the variable portion is transmitted from the processing system to the printing apparatus, both the analyzing process operation and the drawing process operation are carried out in the printing apparatus, and the processed print data is overlaid with respect to the overlay information. As a result, the processing time required for the overlay information is reduced.
Overlay information includes table, frames and fixed character strings when stylized printing operation is carried out. In the normal stylized printing operation, since several sorts of overlays are employed, a large number of pages can be printed. Since several sorts of formats are employed in printing operation for business systems overlay printing systems are generally employed.
Hereinafter, the above-explained conventional techniques will be described in detail with reference to FIGS. 10 through 12. FIG. 10 is a block diagram showing an arrangement of a conventional printing system. FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining the general overlay printing operation. FIG. 12 is a diagram for explaining conventional data used in the overlay printing operation.
As shown in FIG. 10, the conventional printing system includes: an application program unit 301 such as a personal computer; a printing control system 302; a printing apparatus 303; a storage apparatus 304; and a communication line 305 which connects the respective apparatus to each other. The printing control system 302 has an overlay designing unit 306. The application program unit 301 produces print data corresponding to a variable portion to be printed, and the overlay designing unit 306 designs an overlay corresponding to a fixed portion to be printed so as to acquire overlay information.
The storage apparatus 304 registers the overlay information (fixed portion) designed in the overlay designing unit 306 via the printing apparatus 303. As a result, the overlay information from the storage apparatus 304 becomes ready to be accessed by the printing apparatus 303. When a printing operation is carried out, the printing apparatus 303 receives the print data of the variable portion from the application program unit 301, and also, reads out the overlay information stored in the storage apparatus 304 as the print data of the fixed portion, and then overlays the print data of the variable portion over the print data of the fixed portion, and thereafter, performs a printing process operation with respect to this overlaid result.
With reference to FIG. 11, a structure of overlay information is explained. As shown in FIG. 11, a fixed portion corresponds to overlay information in which while an input item is previously designed by layout information such as a ruled line, variable information may be entered into this input item. In the case of the fixed portion, although not shown, information used to form the fixed portion is sent from another apparatus to the overlay designing unit 306, and then, designing of the overlay information is carried out in this overlay designing unit 306.
A variable portion, as shown in FIG. 11, corresponds to variable print data which is used to be entered into the input item determined by the fixing portion in an overlay manner. In the case of the variable portion, since the print data functioning as the variable portion is prepared in the application program 301, this print data may be produced as the print data of the variable portion.
When both the print data of the variable portion supplied from the application program portion 301 and the print data of the fixed portion supplied from the storage apparatus 304 are collected in the printing apparatus 303, as indicated in FIG. 11, the variable portion is overlaid on the fixed portion, and then, a printing process operation is carried while this overlaid result is employed as a final output. Since the print data of the fixed portion has been previously registered in the storage apparatus 304 provided on the printing apparatus 303 and is expanded, the processing performance of the printing apparatus 303 can be improved.
In this case, a description is made of data utilized in an overlay printing operation with reference to FIG. 12. As shown in FIG. 12, a fixed portion includes: an overlay identifier; a character control code; a character code; and a figure control code. The overlay identifier corresponds to such an identifier for identifying an overlay. The character control code corresponds to such a code for controlling a font, a size, and modification information. The character code corresponds to a code of a character string to be printed. The figure control code corresponds to such a code for controlling a vector figure and an image.
As indicated in FIG. 12, a variable portion includes: a print attribute control code; a character control code; and a character code. The print attribute control code corresponds to such attribute information as a size of a printing paper, a printing direction, a printing surface, and a use overlay. Both the character control code and the character code are similar to those as explained in the above-described fixed portion.
The print data is subdivided into the variable portion and the fixed portion, each having the format information as shown in FIG. 12. As a consequence, in the case that a format is changed in connection with a change in business contents, there are some possibilities that the variable portion containing the format information must be changed. Normally, the variable portion is produced by the application program unit 301 which is operated in the process operation. As a consequence, there are some possibilities that the program content of the application program 301 must be corrected. As a result, in order to change the format, the program content need to be corrected by expert engineers, and also, the time duration is required so as to change the program content.
On the other hand, in order to improve a general-purpose characteristic capable of flexibly accepting the change in the formats, such a method has been proposed by which the print data is separated into logical information and layout information in the format printing operation. In the above method, code data indicative of only character strings (in a case of text data) is included in the logical information, and all items such as a font of this character string, a size of this font, modification information, and positional information are included in the layout information. In a processing system for producing a print request, such an information is produced which is constituted by a plurality of logical information, and layout information corresponding to the respective produced information is previously designed as templates.
The method described above is such a printing method that the print data is produced from the above-described two sorts of logical information and the layout information, and then, the produced print data is transmitted to the printing apparatus. In the printing method, since the logical information is separated from the layout information, the change in the templates gives no influence to the logical information. As a consequence, while the application program unit is no longer corrected in order to change the templates, such a printing system capable of readily changing the templates can be realized.
However, in the above-described conventional printing system capable of performing the overlay registering operation on the side of the printing apparatus, there occurs a problem that an overhead is increased when the print data is produced. As a result, in order to maintain the high speed in printing, the conventional printing system requires expensive hardware for producing the print data.